Edward Hobart Seymour

Admiral of the Fleet SIR Edward Hobart Seymour, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., P.C., Royal Navy (30 April, 1840 – 2 March, 1929), was an officer of the Royal Navy who after decades of unstinting service commanded the substantial British naval presence in China during the Boxer Rebellion.

Early Life & Career

Seymour was born at Kinwarton, Warwickshire, on 30 April 1840, was the second son of the Revd Richard Seymour (1806–1880), rector of Kinwarton, and his wife, Frances (d. 27 April 1871), third daughter of Charles Smith MP, of Suttons, Essex. He was grandson of Rear-Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, first baronet (1768–1834), and nephew of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour (1802–1887). He was educated from 1850 at Radley College (headmaster the Revd W. B. Heathcote), where among his schoolfellows were two other future admirals, Lord Walter Talbot Kerr and Lord Charles Thomas Montagu-Douglas-Scott. Seymour had little difficulty in choosing his profession: ‘As soon as I had sense enough to form a real wish, it was to go to sea.’ Having been offered a nomination for the Royal Navy, he was sent to Eastman's naval academy at Southsea in the autumn of 1852, and two months later passed the service entrance examination at Portsmouth. A sum in the rule of three and a ‘dictation’ of twenty lines from The Spectator made up the test. The next day he joined the Encounter, a screw corvette. He served in her for eight months and was then appointed to the Terrible, in the Mediterranean, a paddle-wheel frigate of 21 guns, which was one of the ships of the allied fleet sent to make a demonstration in the Black Sea in January 1854. In the Terrible, Seymour sailed for Odessa on the declaration of war with Russia the following April, and thereafter he served in all the operations in the Black Sea until the final evacuation of the Crimea in 1856.

At the end of the Crimean War in 1857, Seymour, still a midshipman, was appointed to the Calcutta, flagship of his uncle Sir Michael Seymour, on the China station. He took passage in the sloop Cruiser, and his experience in that vessel he afterwards described as ‘a first-rate specimen of how youngsters were disregarded and neglected as to their instruction or care of any sort’. He reached China in time to take part in the operations which resulted from the Arrow incident. Canton (Guangzhou) was being blockaded and an attack upon a Chinese fleet of about 100 junks was in preparation. Seymour took part in the attack, during which the launch on which he was serving was sunk by a round shot. After the destruction of the fleet of junks the expedition moved up the Canton River to take the city, and Seymour served with the battery of the naval brigade; the other midshipman of the battery was Arthur Knyvet Wilson, afterwards admiral of the fleet. After the capture of Canton (December 1857) the squadron moved to the Gulf of Pecheli (Beizhili) in order to get in touch with the Chinese government at Peking (Beijing). Seymour took part in the severe engagement in which the mouth of the Peiho (Beihe) River, protected by the Taku (Dagu) forts, was forced (May 1858). This was his last service in that war, for shortly afterwards he was invalided home as a result of sunstroke.

On his return to Britain, Seymour passed his examinations and was promoted mate (1859). When he heard that war had again broken out in China, he applied for a ship of that station and sailed for the East in the frigate Impérieuse. In Rhio Strait, on the way out, he went overboard to rescue a seaman in waters infested with sharks, for which he received the Royal Humane Society silver medal.

The commander-in-chief on the China station, Sir James Hope, having a blank commission for a lieutenant, gave it to Seymour and took him into his flagship, the Chesapeake. In her, Seymour took part in the combined attack by British and French forces on the Taku forts in September 1860. An expedition up the Yang-tse River in a flotilla of light craft and paddle-wheel vessels gave him a new experience; he served first as executive officer, and later was given command of the paddle-steamer Waterman on the Canton River. He returned to the flagship in 1861 and took part in the operations against the Taiping rebels (1862), in the capture of Ningpo (Ningbo) and Kahding (Jiading), commanding small-arm parties. In 1863 he returned to Britain. He was twenty-three, and had ten years' continuous active service.

On his return to Britain, Seymour served three years as flag-lieutenant to his uncle Sir Michael Seymour, commander-in-chief at Portsmouth. He then received a ‘haul-down’ promotion to commander at the age of twenty-six (1866). Posts for commanders were few, and he was on half pay for two years. Anxious to take part in a projected Arctic expedition, he took a cruise in northern waters in a Peterhead whaler, in order to gain experience of the ice. In 1868 he was appointed to the coastguard in Ireland, a position which, although enjoyable, was uncongenial to one whose whole desire was to serve at sea. In June 1869 he obtained his wish as commander of the gunboat Growler on the west coast of Africa. In the course of operations on the Congo in 1870 he was shot in the leg. The wound was severe and he was invalided: consequently, when he applied in 1875 for the command of the Discovery in the polar expedition under George Nares, he was rejected on medical grounds.

An enforced leisure of eighteen months on half pay was used by Seymour to improve his French by visiting France and Switzerland. In January 1872 he was given command of the paddle-wheel dispatch vessel Vigilant for service in the Channel Fleet. In March 1873, at the age of thirty-three, he was promoted post captain. A further period on shore followed, but caused him no deep regret. He spent a year at the Royal Naval College and then travelled in France and Italy. Normally, officers at that time spent at least five years on half pay on promotion, but the Admiralty, taking into consideration Seymour's loss of the command of the Discovery in the Arctic expedition, appointed him at his own request to the troopship Orontes. Three years' experience, in his own words, ‘greatly enlarged my knowledge of that seemingly volatile yet really constant element called “human nature”’. Although he considered that ‘trooping was not proper naval work’, he saw value in it for the contact which it promoted between the services.

In 1879 Seymour found himself once more on half pay, and used the opportunity to study at the torpedo school and, as before, to travel abroad and refresh his knowledge of French. His service in combined operations with foreign officers in his early days, and later in China as commander-in-chief, impressed him greatly with the need for naval officers to have a knowledge of foreign languages. ‘I should make it a rule’, he wrote in his memoirs, ‘that no boy might become a naval cadet unless he could hold an ordinary conversation in at least one foreign language.’ In April 1880 Seymour commissioned the cruiser Iris in the Mediterranean, and the following July joined the fleet commanded by Sir Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester). When the rioting took place at Alexandria in July 1882, Seymour was detached to guard the Suez Canal. Later, he dismantled the forts on the Rosetta mouth of the Nile. In November he succeeded Captain J. A. Fisher in command of the battleship Inflexible; he hauled down his pennant in February 1885. Three months later, when war threatened with Russia, he was placed in command of the Cunard liner Oregon, commissioned as an auxiliary cruiser—which convinced him that the fighting value of such vessels was very small.

Ten months on half pay followed. From May 1886 to December 1887 Seymour served as flag-captain to Admiral Sir George Willes, commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, and was then made the assistant to the admiral-superintendent of naval reserves; this post he held until his promotion to flag rank at the age of forty-nine (1889). A long period of half pay was then employed in again visiting foreign countries: he travelled in France, Russia, the West Indies, and the United States. In July 1892 he hoisted his flag for the first time on board the Swiftsure for the annual manoeuvres, after which he became second-in-command of the channel squadron with his flag on board the Anson. It fell to him to take part in the raising of the Howe when she grounded at Ferrol, but apart from that particular service the command gave him less work than his energetic mind required. More active work followed when he was appointed, for three years, admiral-superintendent of the reserves.

China Station

On 12 December, 1897 Seymour was appointed Commander-in-Chief on the China Station. He was gazetted a Knight Commander of the Military Division of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (K.C.B.) on 14 March, 1898. Service there was peaceful until the Boxer uprising in 1900. On 31 May he received news from the British minister, Sir Claude Macdonald, that the situation at Peking was precarious. Having already detached a small force for the defence of the legations, Seymour proceeded at once to the Taku forts. A naval force of ships of several nations shortly assembled, of which, as senior admiral, Seymour assumed command. At a consultation with the foreign commanders it was decided to form a naval brigade under the command of Seymour with his flag-captain John Jellicoe as chief of staff, to march, if necessary, to Peking. Matters moved fast. Immediate help was urgently called for from the legations on 9 June; the next day the brigade—a mixed force of 2000 marines and bluejackets—was landed, and a sharp encounter with the Boxers took place on 11 June at Langfang, about half-way to Peking. Seymour then found himself unable to proceed. He was faced by considerable forces, the railway was cut, and he had no other means of transport. He held on for a week, but was then forced to retire on Tientsin (Tianjin), his short-rationed force harassed by the enemy. At Hsiku (Xigu), an important arsenal, he was attacked by regulars of the Chinese army. He stormed the arsenal and there defended himself against continued assaults until relieved by a body of Russian troops, when he withdrew his brigade and left the operations in the hands of military forces. Seymour's conduct throughout these difficult operations was highly commended, and his command was extended for a further six months. In March 1901 he was promoted to admiral and returned to Britain; he hauled down his flag on 21 August. On 9 November he was promoted Knight Grand Cross in the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (G.C.B.).

In 1902 Seymour accompanied the duke of Connaught on his mission to Madrid for the coronation of Alfonso XIII. In the same year he served on Sir Edward Grey's committee on the staffing of the navy. On 3 October he was appointed First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp to King Edward VII, in place of Sir James E. Erskine. In 1903 he was appointed to the command at Devonport, which he held until February 1905, when he was made admiral of the fleet. In accordance with custom, he would have then hauled down his flag, but an exception was made on account of his distinguished service, and he kept his flag flying for another month. In 1906 Seymour accompanied Prince Arthur of Connaught on his state visit to Japan, and in 1909 he had the unusual honour of re-hoisting the flag of an admiral of the fleet on board the Inflexible when he commanded a squadron sent to Boston, Massachusetts, for the Hudson–Fulton celebration. He retired in 1910 and took no further part in public affairs. He was awarded the Order of Merit (1902), and was made GCB (1901) and GCVO (1906); he was also awarded a Cambridge LLD (1904), and sworn of the privy council (1909).

Seymour was a man of a broad and humane outlook, with a capacity for appreciating others' points of view; this contributed largely to the harmonious relations with foreign officers serving under him. He was widely read and a good linguist. An officer with uncommon intellectual breadth, Seymour was never pushed to his limits, but performed his duties with skill, insight, and dignity. He described his services with modesty in My Naval Career and Travels (1911). He was unmarried. He died of influenza at his home, Hedsor View, Maidenhead Court, Maidenhead, Berkshire, on 2 March, 1929.

Bibliography

• "Sir E. H. Seymour, O.M." (Obituaries). The Times. Monday, 4 March, 1929. Issue 45142, col A, pg. 11.
• Seymour, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Hobart. My Naval Career and Travels. London: Smith, Elder & Co..

Service Records

• The National Archives. ADM 196/37.
• The National Archives. ADM 196/14.

Naval Offices
Preceded by Robert O'B. FitzRoy	First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp 1894 – 1897	Succeeded by Compton E. Domvile
Preceded by Sir Alexander Buller	Commander-in-Chief on the China Station 1911 – 1913	Succeeded by Sir Cyprian A. G. Bridge
Preceded by Sir James E. Erskine	First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp 1895 – 1897	Succeeded by Sir Henry F. Stephenson